LONDON – Credit card fraud happens when an unauthorized person uses another individual’s credit card to perform transactions such as making purchases or getting cash advances without the individual’s consent.
This fraud happens when the credit card information is accessed by someone else apart from the rightful owner, mostly a fraudster, and uses it for their own selfish gains. It can be a devastating experience when you are a victim of credit card fraud.
To keep you safe from such an experience, here are a few tips to prevent credit card fraud:
- Beware Of Online Scams
You’ll always get emails with links that are meant to redirect you to websites offering special products or services. Most of these websites prompt you to key in your personal information along with your credit card details. Unaware to most people is that these are scammers prying for their personal information and once they feed it in, credit card fraud is inevitable.
Be extremely careful when you are providing your credit card information online. Feed in your information in sites that you’ve verified are genuine and legitimate and that guarantee that your information will not be leaked and accessed by third parties.
- Destroy Before Disposing Documentation Containing Credit Card Information
Whether you are shopping or have gone to a bank to request for a credit card statement, you’ll always be issued with some form of documentation which highlights the kind of transaction you’ve performed using your credit card.
This documentation contains your credit card number along with other relevant information that fraudsters would use to defraud you. Once you’re issued with this documentation and are done using it, avoid disposing of it as it is.
Ensure that you first shred it or tear it into pieces to completely alter the visibility of the information on it. If possible, burn it. If the documentation lands in the hands of a skilled fraudster, you’ll experience the bitter taste of credit card fraud.
- Take Action Immediately You Lose Your Credit Card
You would not wish to lose your credit card but in the unfortunate event that you do, you should take action immediately to report this loss to your credit card issuer.
Reporting immediately will help cancel the card and prevent fraudsters from using it for any fraudulent activity. Failure to do so may result in you incurring fraudulent charges as a result of the card performing fraudulent transactions.
Keep your credit card issuer’s number close by to allow you to act quickly in reporting the loss in the unfortunate event that you lose your card.
- Set Strong Passwords And Keep Them Secret
It’s common practice for most people to have their credit card number and password saved on different sites to allow them to perform quick transactions without having to key in the information over and over again.
As efficient as this may be, it could be dangerous. The best approach is to unlink your password from such sites and just spend those few seconds keying it in when you want to perform a transaction. A fraudster could easily manipulate the system, view your password, and mess you up.
Ensure also that the password you use is secure. Let it have a mix of both upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols and keep it lengthy.
Conclusion
Ensure that you keep your credit card safe. Here is some more helpful information about credit cards.
